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Old 10-10-2008, 08:56 PM
 
2,141 posts, read 7,847,179 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve_TN View Post
Who are we to judge if homosexuality is a sin?
I don't think it's a sin. I'm not very religious either. But I do know that Christians believe that we're all sinners. Jesus died for our sins. I'm sure you've heard that, whether you believe it or not. So my response is to those who do. Gays, like non-gays, are sinners. The entire congregation are sinners. Thus, one of the reasons to go to church in the first place.
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Old 10-10-2008, 08:57 PM
 
Location: Where the sun likes to shine!!
20,549 posts, read 30,296,455 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve_TN View Post
But how can anything be murder if it happened during a consensual act? That I don't understand. Now if someone forced someone to do something and death occurs, then sure, it is murder.
Sounds like an accident to me.
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Old 10-10-2008, 09:10 PM
 
Location: Murfreesboro, TN
3,528 posts, read 8,592,166 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by younglisa7 View Post
Sounds like an accident to me.
Exactly!!!! "Consenting" is the key word. Thank you so much younglisa for your intelligence!!!!!!!!!
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Old 10-11-2008, 07:57 AM
 
5,715 posts, read 15,013,559 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by b. frank View Post
Oh - and to remain on topic: One of the youth pastors in my church turned out to be gay and "left" (was thrown out of) the church. According to my parents the reason was that the man had destroyed the lives of his wife and children by coming out - not just that he was gay. But I was angry over it. I could tell that the guy was a good person and I didn't like seeing him get demonized for being true to himself.
I think this is very sad but it was right for him to be "dismissed".

Surely, you don't think that this guy should divorce his wife and stay on at the church as their gay youth pastor?

There are many scriptures that speak to this topic...
Here's just a few of them.

" Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge. "

Hebrews 13:4

" Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body.
Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?
You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body."

1 Corinthians 6:18-20

" It is God's will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the heathen, who do not know God; and that in this matter no one should wrong his brother or take advantage of him.
The Lord will punish men for all such sins, as we have already told you and warned you.
For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life.
Therefore, he who rejects this instruction does not reject man but God,who gives you his Holy Spirit."

1 Thessalonians 4:3-8

Last edited by World Citizen; 10-11-2008 at 09:15 AM..
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Old 10-18-2008, 10:09 PM
 
Location: Georgia, USA
702 posts, read 1,001,756 times
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"Ye have wearied the LORD with your words. Yet ye say, Wherein have we wearied him? When ye say, Every one that doeth evil is good in the sight of the LORD, and he delighteth in them; or, Where is the God of judgment?" (Malachi 2:17)

There are more open and public meetings where "whosoever will may come," but with the intent that they "take freely of the river of the water of Life." There are also more closed meetings. When Paul was finally released into his apostolic ministry we're told . . .

Acts 13 :1-2 . . .
Now there were in the church that was at Antioch certain prophets and teachers . . . As they ministered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them.

This is something we'd probably do more exclusively as the Church. Another example of more private gatherings is...

1 Corinthians 5:4-13 . . .
4 In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when ye are gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ,
5 To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.
6 Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?
7 Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us:
8 Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
9 I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company withfornicators:
10 Yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world
, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters; for then must ye needs go out of the world.
11 But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat.
12 For what have I to do to judge them also that are without? do not ye judge them that are within?
13 But them that are without God judgeth. Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person."


In such circumstances as putting away from protection among us someone so their flesh may be destroyed, it seems we are not holding a public meeting. Notice, it is to their salvation such is done. While in the ages to come all will become a part of the temple of God, ". . . outside are dogs . . ." (Revelation 22:15) Following is an example of unbelieving or newly believing people attending our gatherings:

1 Corinthians 14:23-25 . . .

23 If therefore the whole church be come together into one place, and all speak with tongues, and there come in those that are unlearned, or unbelievers, will they not say that ye are mad?
24 But if all prophesy, and there come in one that believeth not, or one unlearned, he is convinced of all, he is judged of all:
25 And thus are the secrets of his heart made manifest; and so falling down on his face he will worship God, and report that God is in you of a truth.

Does this describe your gathering together? The immediately following verse directly instructs us in how we are to meet:

1 Corinthians 14:26 . . .
26 How is it then, brethren? when ye come together, every one of you hath a psalm, hath a doctrine, hath a tongue, hath a revelation, hath an interpretation. Let all things be done unto edifying.

This is about "those from a common womb", the "brethren!" Consider that we do not want the spirits behind perversion or other wickedness creating the atmosphere for The Saints, that is, The Holy Ones. We also disallow their influence on our children. By no means is it irrelevant that some of our personal problems may be as much or more of an attraction to us as what is undergone by those refusing to reject the sin that so easily besets them. Sometimes we must reject them for our own salvation. Because someone doesn't want to go against a nasty habit they find pleasurable they claim it's their nature when it's actually against their nature. To be Jesus disciples is to deny ourselves. Nobody gets a free pass on this. The idea God is our servant to fulfill whatever fleshy lust we agree with one another to normalize will shortly be corrected. What the record often shows is a falsification of Christian values by those who claim to know what the true Christianity is while hating those who love and obey Jesus resulting in the persecution of the Church.

There are many parrots with colorful plumage that erroneously think whatever they're interested in should just naturally open for them. It matters not the names called upon those embracing, approving and authorizing us if we do not have the honor that God alone bestows. What the real God is doing may be variously approached. Born into this world as an Adamic human we perceive the world with human perceptions. Born again into the kingdom of God as a child of God we perceive God and all other things with Divine perceptions. There is constitutionally no admittance into this other dimension except by the operation of the Holy Spirit; not by anything innate in Adamic nature, nor by indoctrination, but by God's self revealing only.

There are 12 things spoken of as "mysteries" in the N.T. What is popularly taught of these mysteries is they are things that were formerly not known that now are made known in the N.T. writings. But, rather than historical it is the coming of Christ to dwell within that reveals these continuously unfolding "mystical" realities. What Paul was granted was, ". . . to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery . . ." (Ephesians 3:9) When what is supposed to be God's truth has been described to men's satisfaction and they prescribe so far and no farther, it becomes a dead thing, administered by bricks in their bureaucratic wall. But when we experience the unfolding mystery of God within, revealing new truths in His word and bringing us on into the image and likeness of God, in sharing these things with one another we have a living fellowship together with God.

1 John 3:9-10 . . .
9 Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.
10 In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother.


We are told to know them that labor among us. Strangers or the wicked, though they may occasionally attend, are not welcome to the every member participation that the body of Christ should be experiencing. Our normal "round-table" structure meetings involve more mutual recognition as members of Christ's body. The special or beginers meetings that are of a less participatory "lecture" structure it is not as crucial for us to monitor one-another because these are less "one anothering" in format. Those who regularly are only an audience for a performance on stage by substitute mediators, what they have to do with being the body of Christ is uncertain. What they do with homosexuals, as apostates themselves, is hardly to be regarded as pacesetting for us.

The Bridal Chamber does not encompass the whole world.

Last edited by JamesMRohde; 10-18-2008 at 10:53 PM..
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Old 10-18-2008, 10:52 PM
 
Location: Charlotte, NC (in my mind)
7,943 posts, read 17,195,553 times
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The homosexual could attend, but could not become a member, sing in the choir, etc until they have repented. The homosexual needs to know about the grace of God and the fact that He can deliver anybody from their sins.
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Old 10-19-2008, 05:31 AM
 
Location: Purgatory
396 posts, read 835,182 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bchris02 View Post
The homosexual could attend, but could not become a member, sing in the choir, etc until they have repented. The homosexual needs to know about the grace of God and the fact that He can deliver anybody from their sins.
I attended the Newman Center while in College for Mass and our Guitar Player was a Lesbian...not only that, but she was dating the Cantor! (BTW, I hooked them up! ) Both women received communion each Mass. Both were very religious women. They were both welcomed by both the Priest and the Campus Minister (the Campus Ministers brother also happens to be gay) not to mention our entire congregation. So what happens if a homosexual stepped into my church? They were welcomed with open arms!
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Old 10-19-2008, 06:33 AM
 
Location: Charlotte, NC (in my mind)
7,943 posts, read 17,195,553 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Morale Officer View Post
I attended the Newman Center while in College for Mass and our Guitar Player was a Lesbian...not only that, but she was dating the Cantor! (BTW, I hooked them up! ) Both women received communion each Mass. Both were very religious women. They were both welcomed by both the Priest and the Campus Minister (the Campus Ministers brother also happens to be gay) not to mention our entire congregation. So what happens if a homosexual stepped into my church? They were welcomed with open arms!
And that is what we would call an apostate church. In fact, thats not a church. Its only a church when the Bible - all of it within context - is followed.

Unitarians, MCC, and UCC are out in my book and God's book according to His word. You know a tree by the fruit it bears.

Last edited by bchris02; 10-19-2008 at 06:49 AM..
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Old 10-19-2008, 07:06 AM
 
Location: Purgatory
396 posts, read 835,182 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bchris02 View Post
And that is what we would call an apostate church. In fact, thats not a church. Its only a church when the Bible - all of it within context - is followed.

Unitarians, MCC, and UCC are out in my book and God's book according to His word. You know a tree by the fruit it bears.
That church was (and is) a Catholic Church. I've also got a friend in a UMC church whose congregation fully accepted her as their Lesbian Associate Pastor until she was defrocked...then that church kept her on as a Lay-minister and welcomed both her and her partner with open arms.
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Old 10-19-2008, 12:49 PM
 
Location: NW Arkansas
3,978 posts, read 8,523,319 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Morale Officer View Post
I attended the Newman Center while in College for Mass and our Guitar Player was a Lesbian...not only that, but she was dating the Cantor! (BTW, I hooked them up! ) Both women received communion each Mass. Both were very religious women. They were both welcomed by both the Priest and the Campus Minister (the Campus Ministers brother also happens to be gay) not to mention our entire congregation. So what happens if a homosexual stepped into my church? They were welcomed with open arms!
And you think since this "church' allows and approves of that, that it is okay with God?
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